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The science is solid, it is time to move on - the UK government view on climategate

06 May 2011, 13:20

Christian

The government have just formally responded to the Science and
Technology committee's review of the reviews of the UEA emails - a
response that they have to provide as part of the committee
process. The short version of their response is that they accept
the findings of the Science and Technology committee, which had
broadly found that most of the charges brought against UEA and the
review processes were baseless.

If you're interested in more detail, you've probably been
following this for a while (for those less interested an outline of
the whole process is here), so
forgive me if I don't explain every last point in intricate
detail.

So, the government response, point by point. The top line:

The findings of the Committee give
us confidence in our judgement that the conclusions are well
thought through and that no events at CRU undermine the
scientific consensus on human-induced climate change.The
recommendations of the reviews are also useful for advising future
research policies and practices.[our emphasis]

On the question of whether the reviews did a good job of being
transparent the government suggest that more transparency in -
particularly in relation to the
enquiry headed up by Lord Oxburgh - would have been a good
thing, to avoid misinterpretation and 'guard against deliberate
misrepresentation':

The Government notes the recommendations
of the Committee in relation to the SAP [Scientific Assessment
Panel - Oxburgh's enquiry], noting that it has not questioned the
validity of its findings, but rather suggested that the manner in
which the Panel made information available, including in relation
to the scope of its work, had allowed some to question its
approach. We consider that this highlights the Government response
to the Science and Technology Committee's First Report of Session
2010-12 importance of transparency in communication-both to avoid
misinterpretation and to guard against deliberate
misrepresentation.

On the selection of scientific papers by the Oxburgh enquiry the
question was were areas of CRU's work excluded from review
deliberately? The enquiries concluded that this wasn't the case,
and the Sci/Tech committee didn't think so. Now the government
don't think so either:

We note the Committee's conclusion that
the selection of papers examined by the SAP was representative of
the work of CRU in all areas in which allegations had been made. We
note that once again the primary concern of the Committee related
to transparency and communication-in this case with regard to the
process for selecting the sample of papers considered by the
SAP-rather than any conscious decision to purposely overlook
certain areas of work.

Some had complained that showing the results of the Muir-Russell
enquiry to UEA before publication suggested collusion. The
government however are having none of it, with a one line
response:

The Government notes that providing
advance copies of reports to stakeholders is common practice in
public and parliamentary life.

On the subject of whether the UEA/CRU team had been
inappropriately subverting the peer review process:

The Sci/Tech Committee said:

The conclusions reached by the
Independent Climate Change E-mails Review (ICCER) are in line with
our predecessor Committee's findings that "the evidence they saw
did not suggest that Professor Jones was trying to subvert the peer
review process and that academics should not be criticised for
making informal comments on academic papers". We stand by this
conclusion and are satisfied with the detailed analysis of the
allegations by the ICCER.

The government responds

The Government notes the Committee's
conclusion that there was no evidence of attempts to subvert the
peer review process, and agrees that academics should not be
criticised for commenting informally on academic papers, noting
that constructive criticism and challenge is fundamental to
ensuring a robust scientific approach.

On the charge that the academics had not properly complied with
FoI legislation by deleting emails or asking for emails to be
deleted in a way which would leave them open to prosecution,
interestingly the government note that this is something they will
continue to examine (even though the statute of limitation has
passed)- to clarify, the government are looking at whether a
six month statute of limitation is generally acceptable, not
further examining this specific case.

The Government will continue to work
with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to determine the
extent that alleged offences, under section 77 of the FOI Act and
Regulation 19 of the EIR, have not been prosecuted as a result of
the current provisions.

Finally the Committee notes - in what is the most important part
of their response -

much rests on the accuracy and integrity
of climate science. It is vital that the wider public and
Government can take confidence in the evidence that underpins
public policies.

Evidence from multiple disciplines and sources strongly indicates
that climate change, driven by human activities, poses real risks
for our future. This evidence is comprehensively captured in the
Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), and in more recent analyses including from the US
National Research Council of the National Academies. It is also
clear from an almost continuous body of publications in the
academic literature that the evidence for human induced climate
change continues to grow and that the perceptions of future climate
risk are not diminishing.

The Government welcomes the scrutiny that has been provided by two
independent reviews, plus two sessions of the Science and
Technology Committee, to investigate the allegations arising from
the unauthorised release of data at the University of East Anglia.
As well as establishing that events at the University do not
undermine the scientific basis of human-driven climate change, the
reviews have made a number of useful recommendations to improve
transparency in climate science.

Such recommendations will continue to strengthen climate science.
Important work remains better to understand the risks of climate
change, and how to manage them. We welcome-and agree with-the
finding of the Committee that it is time 'with greater openness and
transparency, to move on'.

The clear message from this response is presumably this: If
there is a conspiracy to cover up malpractice throughout this
affair, it has successfully enmeshed UEA, three reviews (Sci/Tech,
Muir Russell and Oxburgh), two review panels in the UK, the Science
and Technology Committee, twice, and the UK government, as well as
multiple reviews of the affair in the US.

While there are commentators who have no problem believing that
all of these institutions are engaged in a conspiracy to deceive us
(a conspiracy which includes every other part of the overwhelming
scientific consensus on this issue), it seems, as it has always
done, pretty unlikely.